


What Steve Wants

by Basingstoke



Series: Unfinished WIP clearinghouse [15]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Asexuality, F/M, M/M, Representative Tammy Duckworth is bae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-13 22:49:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7141034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basingstoke/pseuds/Basingstoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve isn't a virgin, but he isn't looking for love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Steve Wants

**Author's Note:**

> An Avengers story started between Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron. It has been thoroughly Jossed and I don't have the heart to fix it.

Somewhere:

"You think the Howling Commandos were a bunch of butlers? Bucky, remember that whorehouse?"

Bucky nods. "Seven lovely ladies and a twink. So we think, great, one each, we've got money, then this punk says no."

"Someone had to watch," Steve says. Tony hoots. "Keep watch! To keep watch."

Tony still looks delighted. "So," Bucky says, "We all got a girl, and Dum-Dum took the twink. Fucked the girl while the twink fingered him."

"And then he wouldn't shut up about how great it was. Tried to figure out how to ask girls back home to do that."

"Til' I called him a fairy to get him to stop and we got in a fight and I won." Bucky's voice is abruptly dead. He's looking at the floor. "I won."

"Yeah," Steve says. 

*

They're in the gym, sprawled exhausted on the mat after a workout, Barton across the room sharpening his knives, when Natasha says, "Found a lady yet?"

"No," Steve says. "I haven't been looking." He's content here, with his team around him, Bucky in his guest bedroom, purpose in front of him. It's good. Better than it has been in a long time.

She looks at him. "Need a wingman?"

"No."

She gets up and gives him a hand off the floor. "Even if you're waiting for marriage, you have to take the first step. "

"I'm fine. And I didn't wait for marriage." 

Barton drops his whetstone. “Details!” 

“I don’t kiss and tell!” Except once, to Gabe, when he was shot and needed distracting before they reached the morphine. He’d made up a lot of the details, though; the girls had been wearing much less interesting underwear. 

“Come on, she’s gotta be dead,” Clint says, grinning, but his face immediately drops. “Sorry.” 

“And if their descendants look me up, I’ll tell them a hell of a story about grandma, but until then, it’s between me and them. This is not up for discussion,” he says, pointing at Barton. Barton raises his hands. 

“I’m sorry. I should let Natasha kick more class into me.” 

“Say when,” Natasha says, tackling him. 

Barton’s right, though. They’re all dead. They buried Peggy while he was looking for Bucky, and she was his last sweetheart...even though he never kissed Peggy. Not once. 

Probably it was better that way. 

"Ow ow ow," says Barton from the floor. Steve leaves them to it and hits the shower. 

He checks on the rest of the team in turn. Jarvis tells him who's in the tower. Coulson is somewhere over Kansas. He texts Sam from the elevator: "All quiet?"

"Most exciting thing to happen all day was my donut was jelly, not cream," Sam texted back.

"Condolences."

"Thanks, man. It was a shock but I'm working through it."

He sees Thor with Dr. Foster in her lab. It looks like they're running experiments on Mjolnir. Good. Thor is always happier when they're together. Dr. Foster goes out of town a lot to look at the universe through clearer skies.  
*

He’s called before Congress again to address the past and future of the military. He wonders if they give a damn what he says or if they really just want a picture shaking his hand. 

Either way, he seizes the opportunity with both hands. “What I admire most in the modern military is the integration,” he says, and a couple of Congressmen blanch. The one real soldier--Lt. Colonel Tammy Duckworth, a hell of a woman--leans forward. “I served in an integrated unit, of which there were far too few. I am pleased to see that no one now questions the capabilities of Black and Asian soldiers as they used to frequently question the brave men I served with.” 

They lived. Jim had one kid, three grandkids, five great-grandchildren that he met. Gabe stayed in France and adopted four French African refugee kids with a beautiful Resistance fighter. There are two movies about him.

He blinks, shaking it off, not now, and continues. “There is still, though, no integration of women into the armed forces. Barring women from combat roles doesn’t keep them from harm; it only keeps them from the respect they deserve.” He glances up from his pages; Congresswoman Duckworth looks pleased. He’s relieved. 

“Women serve as police and intelligence officers. They served in the Resistance during the Second World War. They are as capable as men and we all know it. The true problem with women in the military is the behavior of men in the military.” 

Congresswoman Duckworth hides a smile behind her hand. The gallery erupts. There’s a ring on her finger, he notices. 

He talks about assault, hazing, abuse, keeping his voice steady as the shouting around him gets louder, remembering the set of Peggy’s shoulders and the lift of her chin, carrying that strength inside him. He’s putting the text of his speech on his website as soon as he’s done. It doesn’t matter if anyone hears him now. The news will pay attention to him later. 

It’s funny; a Canadian runs the site. CaptainAmerica.com was about trading cards and old posters until he reappeared. Then it was current news about him, the merchandise relegated to a back page, until Steve contacted Vin and asked if he would mind posting his statements directly. Reporters keep missing the meat of what he says. 

He doesn’t know why his opinions are always so fucking surprising--except that he does; he spent seventy years on ice while other people put words in his mouth. 

Well, he’s not a dancing monkey any more. 

*

He has so damn much energy. He remembers being small, how tired he was, how sometimes after a day at work he would just drop on the couch and wake up to Bucky trying to get some broth down his throat. Sometimes he was so tired it would fall out of his mouth down his shirt. 

Now he sleeps four hours a night, six if he had to fight something, and he wakes up itching to move. 

*

Steve is walking into Stark’s penthouse, seeking out the giant wall screen so he can watch another movie about the world ending in the past (he’s watched Terminator, the Matrix, the Omega Man, today it’s Twelve Monkeys; he doesn’t know why Stark put a tiny little screen in Steve’s room when he could have a whole private movie theater, but he doesn’t want to ask for one, because he’ll get it, and he hates tripping over construction robots), when he finds Bruce on the couch reading a tablet. “Want to take in a film, Doc?” Steve asks. 

“Not really,” Bruce says. His voice is very low. 

Steve looks at him carefully. He leaves the room, goes into the kitchen, and makes a cup of tea from the box marked “BRUCE’S PRIVATE STASH” in Tony’s hand. He pauses and grabs a beer from the fridge as well before he returns to the main room. 

Bruce is sitting very, very still. “You should probably leave,” he says. 

“I can’t leave one of my men like this.” Steve sets down the tea and the beer on the coffee table and sits down beside Bruce. “I’ll drink whichever one you don’t want.” 

Bruce’s face is olive, his eyes blazing green. “That tea is half valerian. It tastes like dirty socks.” 

“Smells like it too,” Steve agrees. 

Bruce puts the tablet down between them. He picks up the tea. “It’s very calming,” he says. 

The headline on the tablet says “THE HULK’S SHOCKING PAST.” It’s a newspaper website. Steve doesn’t read any further, just picks up the beer. 

They both sit back and sip, looking at nothing in particular. “I’m not one of your men,” Bruce says.

“You took my orders in the field. If you want to muster out, I won’t stop you, but until then, you’re mine to care for,” Steve says. 

“Christ,” Bruce mutters. He presses his fist to his forehead. “Stop.” 

Steve stops talking. He reaches over and takes Bruce’s shoulder instead, waiting for a long moment, then another, until Bruce exhales and seems to shrink under his hand. Might actually shrink. Steve isn’t shaken. “You should read it,” Bruce says, glancing down at the tablet. 

“I don’t need to know what some yellow-pen yahoo thinks of you.” 

“Everything in it is true.” 

“Then I’ll hear it from you when you’re ready,” Steve says. 

He’s not stupid. He listened to Jim Morita on a slow cold night as he whispered the story about how the government came and took his family’s freedom, then their farm, and then took him; how he hadn’t had any letters from his family; how his sister was coughing when he left. How he knew he was fighting against Hitler, but he didn’t know if he believed in America. 

He also knew that his mother never said a thing to him against his father, but she said plenty to her best friend in the Irish they thought he didn’t understand. He didn’t know how to buy lunch in that language, but he knew the words for “black-hearted bastard with the devil in his fists.” 

So he doesn’t need to read Bruce’s story. He kind of knows it already. A man doesn’t turn into a rage monster out of the clear blue sky. 

*

Steve is up in the penthouse again, this time with Bucky, about to watch Soylent Green. He’s been spoiled for the ending. “But I read the book,” he says to Bucky, “and it’s not about eating people, it’s just about hunger and birth control.” 

“The old neighborhood,” Bucky says. 

Steve nods. He thought the same thing. “Beer?” 

“Yeah.” 

Steve tosses him a bottle from the kitchen. 

“Aw, you mutt! Now it’s all shaken up,” Bucky says. 

Stark’s private door opens and he wanders in wearing nothing but boxer shorts. “Morning,” Steve says. It’s two in the afternoon. “Get you some coffee?” 

“Yes,” Stark says. His eyes are closed. 

Stark leans on the countertop as Steve takes a cup down to catch the coffee that Jarvis is already making. He’s rubbing the patch of scar tissue on his chest where his reactor used to be. 

When Steve hands him the cup, Stark slurps half down without opening his eyes. He pauses, then shivers all over, then stands up straight and looks at Steve. “Goldilocks, why are you sleeping in my bed?” 

Because Stark mentioned a time or ten that they were welcome to stop by the penthouse and watch the big TV, doors were open, any time, someone better, he hates TV unless he’s on it. It’s like him to pretend to be mad when Steve takes him up. But Steve doesn’t say that; instead, he says, “But, Ma, you said I could have my friends over!” 

“We were just listening to the radio!” Bucky says, grinning, leaning over the back of the couch. 

Tony narrows his eyes at Bucky. “Get your boots off my furniture.”

“He does sound like Ma,” Steve says. He knuckles Tony’s shoulder as he passes to join Bucky. 

“He does. Stark, say ‘Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,’ and then spit on a comb and fix his hair.”

“Shaddup.” Steve sits. 

“What are you watching? Gone With the Wind? Snow White?”

“Soylent Green,” Steve says. 

“Really? You? But it’s people.” 

Bucky looks over his shoulder. He smacks his metal fist into his hand. “You’re lucky my boy already knew that, Stark."

“That’s very threatening. I’m terrified,” Stark says in a monotone. “Jarvis, where are my pants?” 

“In your closet, sir.” 

“And why not on my body?” 

“History does not relate, sir.” 

Stark sighs. “I should never have let you read so much Wodehouse. I have only myself to blame.” He drained his coffee, poured another cup, and sauntered back into his private rooms. 

Steve looks Bucky in the eyes and says, seriously, “Thank you for having my back.” 

“I wouldn’t really hit a man in his own house.” 

“Stark Industries owns the building, so it’s Pepper’s,” Steve says. “She’s the CEO, Stark is head of R&D.” 

Bucky thought that over. “Can you hit a man in his lady’s house?” 

“Ma didn’t cover that one. He’s no gentleman, though.”

“No?”

“Hasn’t proposed,” Steve says. 

“Cad.” 

“So maybe you should punch him. With the other arm, though. Don’t want to take his head off.”

“That would be a grave loss to mankind,” Bucky says with a deep news announcer voice. “And it--” He fades a little, goes a little blank. He looks at the huge, blank screen. “It can,” he says. 

Steve doesn’t answer. He puts his arm around Bucky’s shoulders and calls up the movie library on the control tablet. He puts Fantasia on instead of Soylent Green. 

“What is this, eighth time?” Bucky asks. 

“Sixth. And shut up.” 

The picture comes up. Bucky leans into him. The first time they’d watched this, it was November, 1940, and the newsreel had been about...he couldn’t remember. Roosevelt, probably, winning his third term. He’d met Roosevelt, after the serum, and been proud to tell him he’d voted for him, though he wasn’t allowed to say it in public. Captain America couldn't take sides. 

“Jarvis, fast-forward through this turkey,” Bucky says as the conductor walks up on screen. Steve laughs but doesn’t protest. “Go straight to the mushrooms.”

They both watch. “Was this always racist?” Steve asks. 

“Every fucking thing was,” Bucky says. “Remember how Gram used to call us pickaninnies when we’d come home dirty?” 

Steve groaned. “God rest her soul.” 

“Because only He could,” Bucky says, echoing his mother.

*

There’s a lot of down time now that he’s not working for SHIELD. He spends most of it with Bucky. Bucky needs him. He’s still sorting out pieces of memory that the electroshock didn’t wipe out.

And Steve needs him. He wants to learn how to swim properly, for one. He swims with his head out of the water like he did back when he had asthma. “You can hold your breath for five damn minutes,” Bucky says. “Put your face in the water!” 

“If I was meant to go underwater, I’d have gills!” 

And Bucky dunks him, and it gets sillier from there. By the time Steve hauls himself out of the water, he’s both smiling and actually tired, and Sam and Natasha are standing poolside watching them. Natasha is wearing a bikini despite the scar. She looks great. 

“Seemed too dangerous to get in,” Sam says. 

“Sorry,” Steve says. Bucky swims up and Steve plants a foot in his forehead, right between his blacked eyes. Bucky growls and grabs his shin, treading water in place. “Suppose it was.” He bends his knee up, letting Bucky up onto the rail. 

Bucky jumps out of the water and shoves him in, but not before Steve hooks his fingers into Bucky’s drawers. “Don’t even,” Bucky says. “You know it won’t be me who regrets it.” 

“If it’s that kind of pool party, maybe we should step back out,” Sam says to Natasha. 

“Naked pool sparring sounds fun,” Natasha says. She sits beside Bucky and splashes Steve. 

“Well that ain’t fair. We’re nice boys, we could never punch you in the titty,” Bucky says, and Steve barely hears Sam’s squawk of laughter before Natasha shoves Bucky in on top of him. He’s lost for a minute in bubbles and splashing and limbs. 

Bucky pulls Steve up by his waist and sets him on his shoulders. “Come on!” he yells, apparently at Sam and Natasha. “Two on two!” 

Steve puts up his dukes. 

Sam looks at Natasha and gives her his hand. She stands on his shoulders. Steve prepares to get his ass kicked. “You punk,” he mutters at Bucky. 

“Serves you right for all the fights you got _me_ into.” 

Steve shakes his head. 

“My friends!” Thor slams the door open, which shouldn’t even be possible. “We join you!” 

“Oh good, I’ll fight you. These two tired each other out,” Natasha says. 

Thor is tearing his clothes off. “With pleasure! But who shall I ride upon?” 

Barton, behind him, raises his hand. His mouth curls up on both ends as Thor just keeps on stripping, right down to the skin. Bucky makes a small noise in his throat. Steve smacks him across the top of the head. “I wasn’t sayin’ nothin’,” Bucky says. 

“That’s right,” Steve says. Thor can be as naked as he wants and Barton can enjoy that as much as he wants. This is America. 

Bruce wanders in with his hands in his pockets. He smiles when he sees everyone. 

“Cannonball!” Barton jumps in the water in his boxers, Thor follows, and their wake rises over Steve’s thighs. Bucky’s black eyes are healed and so are Steve’s bone bruises. Nothing leaves a mark for long on them. 

Bruce dabbles his feet in the water, still otherwise fully clothed. “At least take your pants off,” Natasha says. 

“I’m not, uh, wearing--” Bruce starts. 

“Ha HA!” Thor waves Barton’s boxers over his head. Barton spits water at him. 

“Of course, you guys have seen it all already,” Bruce says. 

When Tony comes in, Bruce is in the water with his elbow hooked on the ledge, watching Natasha kick Thor in the face so hard that he and Clint both flip backwards and into the water. "Jarvis was right when he said you guys were partying without me. Cannonball!" Tony says, and jumps in the pool fully clothed. 

He comes up thrashing and white-eyed. Sam reacts immediately, shrugging Nat off his shoulders and swimming the few strokes to Tony, who immediately grabs him with both arms. "Get us out of the water now," Sam says to Nat. He's barely keeping afloat with Tony clinging to him. 

Natasha hauls them to the side and Steve pulls Tony out with Sam still attached. Tony is mumbling something, he realizes. 

"Rhodey, get me out of here, get me the fuck out of here, Rhodey, get me out--" His face is pressed to Sam's chest. His fists are white-knuckled behind Sam's back. 

"You're safe," Sam says. "You're home. You're out." 

He has to repeat that a lot before Tony snaps out of it. 

Tony's hands relax first, then he says, "You're not Rhodey. No pelt." 

"I don't mind being mistaken for him. You wanna make me a suit too?" 

"Wings weren't enough? Jarvis, that pool is supposed to be heated," Tony says, finally raising his head. 

"That's on me," Steve says. "It felt like a bathtub, so I asked him to change it a couple of weeks ago. I'm sorry." 

Tony points at him without looking. He's rubbing his face with the other hand. "Hot water good, cold water bad. Who doesn't want to swim in a bathtub?"

Thor sits beside Tony and puts his arm around him. Tony, surprisingly, leans in. He sighs. "Ever had someone hold your head under water?" Tony asks. 

"Yeah," Clint says softly. He's crouched beside Thor.

"It sticks with you," Tony says. 

"Fortunately, Sam actually is a shrink," Bruce says. "Unlike me. So quit telling me about your mother and tell him instead." 

Tony snorts. "You love it." 

"No, actually, it's really annoying."

"Come, friend," Thor says. "Let us share a glass and speak of the beauty of our women." 

"Only if you put on some pants," Tony says, letting Thor pull him upright. They exit the pool together, Thor pausing to gather his clothing from the floor. 

"We probably should have some kind of group therapy," Bruce says. 

"But nobody sane would do this shit," Clint says. 

*

Bucky ends up with a stylus and one of the walls in Bruce's lab. He started on a tablet but the list got out of hand. 

Earliest memory is his grandmother spanking him and Steve for getting their Sunday clothes dirty. Steve remembered that, too, and he thought they were five. They'd been friends since they'd been babies, set in an old dresser drawer to drool on each other. Bucky is two months older. 

Bucky ends the list with finding Steve. "Pretty clear on everything after that," he says. His memories are in green. 

"You had waffles for breakfast yesterday," Steve says. 

"What would I fucking do without you." 

The attacks on Steve are easy to fill in. Then they start working from Bucky's file, which is not exactly complete. Everything Bucky doesn't remember goes up in blue. There isn't much green between 1945 and 2014. 

Natasha appears after a few hours and looks at the wall. She takes the stylus, makes a space in February 2009, and writes "shot Natasha" with a frowny face. 

"Sorry about that," Bucky says. Natasha just looks at him. 

"You really don't remember me," she says. It's not a question. 

Bucky shakes his head. 

Natasha makes another space in 1986 and writes "met Natasha first time." Under 1995, she writes "met Natasha second time." She points to "mechanical arm implanted" under 1946. "It was Russian property," she says. "So were we. Hydra took over the Red Room after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, though I didn't know it at the time. None of the handlers changed." 

Bucky looks blank. He just nods. 

She points to 1986. "There were a lot of little spiders at the beginning. A few at the end. One of the training exercises was to put you in a room with something dangerous and see if you could make it out. The first time, I was six." 

Bucky doesn't say anything. 

Natasha shrugs. "You pointed a gun at me and I stood still. Instinct. Then you put down the gun and told me to come over there, and I did, and then you fixed my hair bow." 

Steve swallows. "Hair bow?" 

"Little Russian girls wear hair bows." Natasha's hands form a shape about the size of a dinner plate. "Even little girl assassins. So you fixed my hair, because it was messy, and then took a nap right there on the floor. I did consider shooting you in the head, but I figured you were more expensive than I was. My handlers and yours were both pretty pissed off." 

"Huh," Bucky says. 

"It went differently the second time. Do you have a scar on your shoulder blade? On the left?" 

"Lots," Bucky says, but he shrugs off his shirt to look. 

Natasha pokes a round white mark. It's one scar among many. Steve can't stop looking, cataloging the harm. "I blew a six inch hole in your back and used your arm to punch a hole through the wall while you were dizzy. Nice to know that at least left a mark." 

"Still sorry," Bucky says. He puts his shirt back on. 

"I looked for you after you shot me," Natasha says. "I remembered the first time. You had enough of yourself left to not kill a child."

"Not saying much," Bucky says. 

"Yes it is. So I thought you might break the program. And look. You did." She gives him back the stylus. 

She leaves. Steve takes Bucky by the back of the neck and tips their foreheads together. 

He doesn't say anything, neither of them do, but eventually Bucky slings his good arm around Steve's shoulders. 

*

Bruce calls a meeting, which is a first. 

He’s quiet for the first few minutes, which isn’t strange at all. Then he starts: “When I was six, my parents died and I went to live with my aunt.” He stops. He lowers his head, takes off his glasses, rubs his eyes. “When I was six,” he starts again, slower and softer than before, “my father beat my mother to death with his fists in the master bedroom while I was playing with my Superman doll under the kitchen table.”

Steve hears Clint exhale. Natasha doesn’t react. “I am sorry, my friend, for your loss and that such a thing has been done by one so close to you,” Thor says. 

God bless Thor for knowing what to say, because Steve sure doesn’t. 

Bruce nods. He’s quiet for another moment. “He’s still in jail, I think. I haven’t checked." 

"Jarvis?" Tony says. 

"Sir," Jarvis says, disapprovingly. 

"Only if he wants it," Steve says, looking at Tony. 

"So," Bruce says. "I went to live with my aunt and uncle and their baby, Jennifer. She grew up calling me big brother. I haven’t spoken to them since the incident.” 

He pauses again. “Last month I contacted my aunt and we talked. Jennifer has had Type I diabetes her entire life. It developed into kidney disease and she desperately needs a kidney transplant. And, we worked out, I’m a match.” 

“Great idea,” Tony says. “A Hulk kidney should punch diabetes in the face.” 

“I have no idea what the side effects will be. It could be fatal. I don’t think it will be, which is why I’m willing to go ahead. The most likely outcome is that she’ll have a kidney that acts twenty when she’s eighty. An unlikely outcome is that we have a second Hulk. I told Jennifer this. She said possibly green is better than definitely dead, and she’s willing to be contained if things go south.” 

“Why tell us?” Natasha asks. “Why take that risk?” 

“I need you to watch my back during the surgery, when I’ll be vulnerable. I need you to contain us if something goes wrong. This is my life,” Bruce says, with a sideways smile. “Something always goes wrong.” 

“Of course we’ll help,” Steve says. 

*

He immediately likes Jennifer Walters. She looks sick and yellow and frail, tucked up in her hospital bed waiting for the procedure to begin, but she beams up at him. “So you’re single, right?” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“Want to get a drink after? If I don’t turn into a giant green monster.” 

“Hey, he’s a teammate. _Only_ if you’re a giant green monster,” Steve says. 

They’re in a small, remote clinic somewhere in Washington State. Tony and Jarvis have vetted the two doctors (Yang and Grey) and the four nurses (Tyler, Lloyd, Lee, and Rodriguez) involved. Natasha and Steve are scrubbed in, standing in the OR. Tony is watching the security feeds. Clint is on the roof. Bucky and Thor are standing around giving people the stink-eye. 

The operation goes flawlessly. It’s nutty seeing a human kidney outside the body, though. It looks just like the beef kidneys that showed up on his plate back in the day.

Bruce wakes up as soon as they turn off the anesthesia. He grimaces, and his side ripples, turns green, and smooths out scar-free. “Bet you a dollar I have a new kidney in there,” Bruce says, rubbing the site. 

“Ultrasound!” Dr. Yang says. “Let’s see.” 

She does and he does. 

“No, you can’t study me,” Bruce says. 

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Yang says. She’s damn near salivating. “This is a crime against science.” 

“The last guy to study me is in a long-term nursing facility. He used my blood to double the size of his brain and now he can taste colors. I’d like some pants, please,” Bruce says. 

Steve gets him his pants. 

They look in on Jennifer, who is stable and sleeping. “She’s fine,” Dr. Grey says. “Vitals couldn’t be better.” 

“Check her stitches,” Bruce says. 

“They’re fine, no seepage.” 

Dr. Yang has followed them into Jennifer’s room. “Check her stitches to see if she’s regenerated like Doctor Who. My patient regrew his kidney. Just now.” She leans against the wall and scowls at Bruce. 

“That’s not how Doctor Who regenerates,” Dr Grey says, but she peels the gauze back. 

“And it’s just the Doctor,” Bruce says. He looks at Jennifer’s incision, which is half healed under the line of black sutures. Her skin shivers, turns green, and heals. “Shit,” Bruce says. 

Jennifer groans. Her hands shift on the bed. Steve activates his comms: “Thor, Bucky, to me. Tony, Clint, clear the building. Doctors, out, now!” 

Dr. Grey takes Dr. Yang by the hand and books it toward the exit. They’re passed by Bucky and Thor. Bruce is standing in the corner with his face in his hand, his other hand tucked under his elbow. “I’m sorry,” Bruce says. 

“It’s not a crisis yet,” Steve says, but then Jennifer gives a loud groan and sits up in the bed. Her head swings from side to side. She’s obviously not focusing, not fully awake.

“Jen,” Bruce says. “It’s okay, everything's okay.” 

She turns green. Her gown splits and the bandages string out and break. She gasps, clutching at her side, her legs growing and touching the floor. Steve stands between her and the doctors--Yang has folded herself over Grey in the corner--and holds his hands carefully by his sides. 

“Oh, fucking what is going on,” Jennifer groans, her voice deep and low. When she sits up, the bed squeals. 

“Deep breaths,” Bruce says. “Look at me.” 

Jennifer breathes deeply. Her face hasn’t changed as much as Bruce’s does. No gamma blast, Steve thinks, just Bruce’s serum and whatever gamma his organ produces. He remembers the serum like fire in his veins. He remembers the blast of the Vita-Ray making his flesh swell like inflating a balloon. 

“Oh god.” Jennifer holds out her hands. “Oh god. Am I going to--how long until I lose it.” 

“Huh. For me, it was right away,” Bruce says. “I started…fully dissociated...and I’ve been gaining control since then.”

Thor busts through the ceiling with Bucky on his back. Bucky flips behind Steve, covering the doctors, while Thor stand toe to toe with Jennifer. “Hold, troll! Stay your fury or feel the wrath of Mjolnir!” He raises his hammer. 

“Troll? I don’t even have Photoshop,” Jennifer says. 

“I think she’s okay, Doc,” Steve says. He takes her hand. "Do you feel okay?" 

"Yeah," she says. "I...yeah." 

Bucky looks at her with his head cocked. His arm ripples and smoothes over. 

“Figures,” Bruce says. “Your inner demon is yourself, only taller.” 

“I always--OHMYGOD!” Jennifer suddenly folds up, knees and arms and shoulders collapsing in across her torso. “BRUCE! I am NAKED!” 

“Oh. You get used to that,” Bruce says, rubbing the back of his neck. 

Thor lowers his hammer. “Allow me,” he says, and he gives her his cloak. 

"I want a blood sample," Dr. Yang says. The other doctor smacks her arm. "Ow! Dammit. I hate all of you." 

"She means that we're happy to serve the public good and we're going to be leaving now," Dr. Grey says. 

*

“So you planning to step out with her? Seems like your type,” Bucky says. 

Steve laughs. He and Bucky have their feet up on the coffee table and beers in their hands. “I don’t know.” 

“What’s not to know? She likes you, you like her, you both have super-strength, it’s perfect.” Bucky elbows him.

Steve elbows him back. “I just don’t know! It’s complicated.” 

“I know you’re not a virgin. You spilled about the chorus girls having their way with you,” Bucky says, shoving Steve with his whole weight. 

“I should never have said a thing! That was not the act of a gentleman!” Steve topples over onto his side. His beer is still upright in his hand, though. 

“We ain’t ever, in any sense of the word, in any possible damn universe, been gentlemen,” Bucky says, and he licks his metal hand and sticks his finger in Steve’s ear. Steve shouts. He grabs Bucky around the waist with his thighs and sends him rolling over the table and into the wall. 

Steve leaps the table, lands on top of Bucky, and pinches his nose shut. He clears his throat, gathering spit. “No! No! Thad’s fugging disgusding, ugh!” Bucky howls. He tries to punch Steve off him, but Steve is straddling his arms. 

Steve is leaning over, ready to spit in Bucky’s mouth, when the wall lights up. Steve looks up; it’s Tony. 

“What’s going on, Cap?” Tony is suiting up. 

Steve lets Bucky go. “Ah, nothing?” 

“Having a beer,” Bucky says. 

“Jarvis rang the alarm. Said there was trouble.” 

“No trouble,” Steve says. “A little, uh, wrestling.” 

Tony’s face mask shoots back up. “Jarvis! What is wrong with you that you can’t tell when people are boning in my house?” 

“I was not aware the Captain was involved,” Jarvis says, sounding shirty. The wall closes out. 

Steve looks at Bucky. Bucky grins. His chest shakes, under Steve, until he laughs out loud, and Steve shoves back off him and raises his beer. “Didn’t spill a drop,” Steve says. 

“Me either.” Bucky sits up and pulls one knee under him, stretching his other boot out to nudge softly against Steve’s hip. 

“Those girls were swell,” Steve says. “It was a great time. But I just...I don’t need it.” He shrugs. It’s hard to put into words. 

“What don’t you need? Girls?” Bucky is leaning forward a little. 

Steve shakes his head. “Those nights...times them by a hundred, and it wouldn’t be as good as just sitting here right now, with you.” 

Bucky swallows. He finishes his beer in one gulp, his eyes still on Steve, and then he’s moving, and then his lips are on Steve’s, and he’s kissing him. 

His chin’s not as soft as it looks, with the stubble lurking just above the skin, but Steve pets it anyway, because this is Bucky, this is James Buchanan Barnes, who shared a cradle with him when they were babies, who picked him up piggyback and said they were the two-headed pirate captain, who stole a cigarette and then threw it away when it made Steve cough, who dared a girl to give Steve his first kiss. Bucky’s been looking after him his whole damn life, and since they already share roofs and hearts and eyes and arms, they can share mouths and spit and breath just the same. 

Bucky’s hand is roaming his back, stroking up and down. Steve touches his ear; there’s the bump where the mean old orange tomcat tore a strip off. He combs his fingers into Bucky’s hair and it is just as soft as it looks. Their mouths move together, back and forth, never quite parting. 

Somehow, though, he’s shocked as hell when Bucky cups his dick. “Fuck!” he yelps, scooting backwards on his ass. 

Steve isn’t hard. Bucky, though, has a damn tent pole in his pants. What a dumbass he is, first base second base third base, but it didn’t cross his mind, and he’s just sitting here with his mouth hanging open. 

The look on Bucky’s face is terrible. “Are you queer?” he whispers. 

“I’m pretty queer,” Steve says, and means it, in the way they grew up with, a person bent sideways in the head. “Buck--” He holds out his hand. 

“You ever look at me and want to touch so bad you feel like you were burning up inside? Any guy, you want to just press your cock up against him? You wanna feel his weight on you and fuck till you both scream?” 

No. He doesn’t say it, but it’s there between them. 

“You ain’t a fairy, you’re just too goddamn nice,” Bucky spits. He turns away. He gets up. 

“No! I’m not that fucking nice!” He grabs Bucky. 

Bucky shoves him off hard, bouncing him into the wall, and kicks him in the stomach so he loses his air. He’s gasping, for a moment, while Bucky is slamming through the door, and then he’s chasing him, staggering down the hall to the elevator. 

Bucky steps inside and the doors almost close but Steve has a hand in and he’s forcing his way in. Bucky shoves him out; Steve grabs the doors and swings back in. “Elevator stopped,” Jarvis says. “Are you in need of assistance?” 

Neither of them speak, because they’re fighting, punch to the arm and elbow to the head and punches to the ribs and foot swipes, and Bucky’s face is a mask of pain, and Steve can barely see for the way his eyes blur. Bucky staggers into the corner and Steve flings himself at him, whispering, “Stay, stay, stay,” both arms around his chest and hugging, fingers digging into Bucky’s jacket. 

Bucky’s arm whirs. He slams Steve upside down ceiling into floor whiteout on the carpet, pausing, stars in his eyes, and the window smashes, and Bucky is gone. 

Wind moans through the hallway. 

His ribs snap back into place. He curls up on his side. His stomach hurts so badly he thinks he’s been gutted, but there’s no blood except a trickle from his nose. 

Bucky is gone. 

*

_[it's okay. Bucky comes back and it finishes with them adopting a dog.]_

*

*

He asks and Joe takes him to the dog shelter. "They're good. They're a no-kill shelter, they put some training on the dogs, they get a lot of play time. Good dogs stay good dogs and rude dogs get polite." 

"Is it run by nuns?" Bucky mutters. Steve cracks up. Hard. Laughs so his stomach hurts, because he knows what Bucky is thinking, he knows exactly the image in his head, with the two of them on leashes. 

Joe says something, pats Steve on the back, and Bucky says, "It's like our orphanage. The head nun said her job was to teach manners to wild little boys. She only wished she could put us on leashes." 

Steve nods, catching his breath. "'Specially us. Wait, Buck, she did, after the oranges--!" And he's gone again, because Sister Bernie had actually tied them together for a day, figuring Steve was the planner and Bucky was the doer and they couldn't get far on Steve's weak lungs, but she hadn't figured on the fact that Buck would just pick Steve up piggyback and make mischief no-handed. 

"Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," Bucky says, and he's snickering behind his hand. 

Actually laughing. The first time since the fall. 

Steve is beaming, he can feel it, just standing there like a goon and watching his best friend giggle. 

"We were ungrateful," Bucky says, still smiling. 

Steve nods. He feels as light as air. "Bad kids. Come on, I want a dog." 

The shelter smells a little like pee and a lot like dog. There's a young woman behind the desk who straightens up and smiles. "How can I help you?" 

"I'm looking for a dog," Steve says. 

"A high-energy dog," Joe says. 

"A lil' orphan dog with blanked-out eyes," Bucky says. 

Steve shoves Bucky. "I'm sorry, miss. Just one dog, and this mook doesn't get a say." 

"'Less the dog bites me, then I get a say," Bucky says. 

She's grinning. "Let me get our adoption counselor. Come on back." 

Steve follows her. Bucky starts, but flinches when he sees the rows of cages. He touches Steve, briefly, and then retreats back to the waiting room. Steve nods. 

"Is he all right?" Joe asks after the door closes behind them. 

"He doesn't like seeing trapped creatures. He'll be okay once we spring one." 

The adoption counselor is another peppy young woman. "Hi! I'm Bev. So you're looking for a high-energy dog?" 

"Well, I run about fifteen miles a day. Mrs. Carter--Joe's dog, I was looking after her--she could keep up," Steve says. 

"Oh wow! So what do you do for a living? Do you work from home?" 

"Well...yes, I do," Steve says. 

"That's fantastic. Do you see this changing in the long run? Can you keep a dog active for the next ten years?" 

Steve nods. If he lives ten years, he can keep a dog happy. If not, he'll figure out who to designate in his will. Maybe Natasha. 

"I have the perfect dog. Come on back and meet Lucy." 

She opens a cage and releases a tiny white dog with a red head. The dog sprints down the corridor to the door, skids into a turn, sprints the other way, leaps and bounces off the other door, and sprints back to Bev, where she hops up and down in place. "High energy," Bev says. She scoops Lucy up. "She's a Jack Russell terrier. They were originally bred as working dogs to hunt rats and other vermin. She wants to be with her person 24-7, doing everything you do, and fifteen miles a day is not going to be a problem." Bev holds Lucy out and Steve takes her. 

Her tail thumps against his forearm. 

*

_[they live happily ever after.]_

**Author's Note:**

> My Twitter: [@Basinke](https://twitter.com/Basinke). Talk to me! 
> 
> My Tumblr: [basinke](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/basinke). Look at things I have looked at!


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